Mental Health Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 39: 39: Clause 26 , page 16, leave out line 34 The noble Earl said: My Lords, we come now to some further, very major, concerns about supervised community treatment. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 41ZA and 50A. Clause 26 will allow the responsible clinician to require a patient on a CTO to abstain from a particular conduct. I suggest that this provision is misplaced, possibly even dangerous. My concern, which has been very widely expressed, is that this particular condition of a CTO could make supervised community treatment into some form of psychiatric ASBO. I can do no better here than quote the Mental Health Act Commission, which has argued: "““Our serious concern would be that perhaps over time those clauses would start to be used in a way that would provide controlling arrangements, perhaps for young black people who are thought to be drug addicts and they are placed on what would be the equivalent of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order but run under the Mental Health Act””." Part of the problem is that the Bill does not go into detail about what sort of conditions might be thought reasonable. One condition might be that the person must not go down to the pub; another might be that he must not be outside his house between certain hours; another might even be that he is not to leave his house at all and that he is to be kept there effectively under house arrest. The potential for a very serious interference with a patient’s private life is considerable. There is no guidance in the Bill to say to the responsible clinician, ““You must exercise your powers in line with public law principles and the patient’s convention rights under the Human Rights Act and the ECHR””. Of course the code of practice will be there, and I am sure that the Minister will point that fact out, but it will have a limited legal effect and cannot be thought sufficient to provide protection to patients in this regard. There are other concerns as well. Carers' organisations are worried that they would be left to police these conditions. Even the National Forum for Assertive Outreach, which is a strong supporter of CTOs, has agreed that it would be morally wrong to place conditions on a CTO such as preventing a patient visiting a pub or begging. This is, above all, a moral issue, but it is also about having clarity in the law and the dangers of a lack of clarity. Let me turn to the other two amendments. These would allow a patient on a CTO to appeal to the mental health review tribunal against any of the conditions imposed. They would also allow a tribunal to recommend that any of the conditions could be varied or suspended when an application has been made to the tribunal for the patient to be discharged. In both cases, the tribunal would have the power to recommend that the responsible clinician should make changes to the conditions. If this is not done, the tribunal would have the power to order a further hearing. We are dealing with a human rights issue of considerable significance. The Bill does not permit the tribunal to review the conditions imposed on a CTO—it can only discharge someone from a CTO altogether. In my submission, that is simply not acceptable. We can easily imagine a situation in which very restrictive conditions have been applied to a CTO—restrictions that are so great as to amount to a breach of the patient’s Article 5 rights. Why should the tribunal not be able to review them? There could be a slightly different situation in which a patient does not dispute the need for a CTO but objects very much to a particular condition which might amount to a breach of a convention right. It could be argued that there is a breach of Article 13 in that there is no effective remedy available. The remedy that the Minister will no doubt refer to is the independence of the approved mental health practitioner. I have considerable doubts about the degree to which the AMHP will be able to exercise true independence as a member of a clinical team which includes the responsible clinician. Are we really saying that proper training will do the trick? The Government clearly did not think that that would be enough when they published the 2004 draft Bill, which made provision for the tribunal to approve conditions and treatment plans. Again, the Minister may say that the code will ensure that the conditions are kept to the minimum necessary. However, the code will not prevent the imposition of a curfew or similar restrictions which, cumulatively, might amount to a deprivation of liberty. There is a real lack of external safeguard, which contrasts with other areas where Article 8 of the convention is engaged, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. I am sure that the Minister will not disagree that restrictions on conduct should be proportionate and that conditions should not be imposed which collectively amount to a deprivation of liberty. The question is whether we can rest content if these requirements do not appear on the face of the statute. I do not believe that we can. Therefore, I beg to move.